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The New York Health Department on Monday declared racism a public health crisis and passed a resolution instructing the Department of Health to take steps to ensure a “racially fair recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic.
The resolution called on the department to work with other agencies to stamp out systemic racism in policies, plans and budgets on a variety of health-related issues, including land use, transport and education. It also directed the department to improve data collection practices and examine both the health code and its own history for structural biases.
Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, the department’s commissioner, is also one of the 11 medical experts on the board. At the meeting on Monday, he noted that the board was formed in the early 19th century amid yellow fever, cholera and smallpox epidemics. Advances in sanitation and understanding the links between environmental factors and health helped contain these diseases.
He drew a parallel with the current pandemic and its oversized tribute to color communities.
“Why do some non-white populations develop serious illnesses and die more often from Covid-19 than whites?” He said. “The underlying health conditions undoubtedly play a role. But why are there higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity in color communities? The answer doesn’t lie in biology. Structural and environmental factors such as divestment, discrimination and disinformation add to the greater burden of these diseases in colored communities. “
He added: “The Covid-19 pandemic must make unacceptable what has been tolerated for generations.”
The department is one of the largest health agencies in the world and one of the oldest in the country. The members of its board of directors, who are appointed by the mayor with the consent of the city council, work free of charge and monitor the health code.
More than 200 similar statements have been made by communities, health officials, and elected officials across the country, according to an American Public Health Association database. The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also drawn attention to how racism affects disease rates and life expectancy.
But the New York Department of Health said its resolution was one of the first to be subject to specific guidelines. These include making recommendations to the mayor’s Racial Justice Commission and setting up a Data for Equity working group to ensure the department applies an “equity lens†to public health data and educates other agencies on how to do the same.
The resolution also called on the division to examine its own role in “divesting and underinvesting in critical community-led health programs.”
Dr. Michelle Morse, chief medical officer and deputy commissioner for the Department of Health, called the passage of the resolution “a hopeful milestone,” but added that it was only part of a much larger puzzle.
She said strategies such as updating the city’s health law and investing in deprived areas are vital.
“Racism is expressed politically, among other things, from inaction in the face of adversity,” she said.
The resolution builds up a statement The division was released in June 2020 amid widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The statement promised to treat racism “as a social determinant of health as part of our mission to protect the health of New Yorkers.”
Dr. Kitaw Demissie, Dean of the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, welcomed the decision as a good start.
“I like the idea that they are focusing on this topic,” he said. “Now the most important thing is to see the implementation, see the investment and see the changes that are to come.”
He said the sharp differences in disease and death rates during the pandemic had drawn attention to long-standing inequalities.
“Covid-19 was like a magnifying glass for us to see what has been around for a long time,” he said. “Racial / ethnic health inequalities were a pandemic.”
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